This image was a bit more work than usual, because I had posed Journey by this kind of black and mossy log. As per normal he was looking all around at birds and leaves, and I really liked how alert he was in this photo, looking up and to the side – my favourite kind of “look”… but I had been preparing for a more centred photo, with him looking toward the camera, so the composition was out of control.
Therefore, I had to get a bit creative. After going through my usual process in Lightroom of fixing the whitebalance, selectively lightening his face, adding some clarity, softening the bokeh and working on his eyes, I took it to Photoshop and immediately set to work copying some of the background from the left side of the image, flipping it and masking it in, enabling me to extend the frame to the right, to give him space to look into.
I then went through my usual workflow (with some technical issues thanks to my tablet and computer playing up), selectively darkening all around Journey (a lot!), casting a spotlight on his face, shifting the background colours slightly more toward red/orange and cyan green, adding a radial gradient for a bit of extra soft light falling on his face, before contouring his face to give it a more 3D effect.
I hope you enjoy! And if you find this helpful, please let me know!
Equipment used:
Sony a7iii & Sony 135mm f/1.8 lens
Edited with Lightroom and Photoshop
From this...
To this!
